§ [The reference is to Bill No. 17.]
§ Clause 3, page 2, line 31, at end insert the following new clause:
§ By-laws as respects dockyard ports.
§ (".—(1) The powers of the Minister of Transport to make by-laws under Section thirty-four of the principal Act as respects any part of the coastal or tidal waters for which there is no harbour authority may, as respects any dockyard port, be exercised by the Admiralty.
§ (2) In this section the expression 'dockyard port' means a dockyard port as defined under the Dockyard Port Regulation Act, 1865, and the powers given by this section shall be in addition to, and not in derogation of, any powers otherwise vested in the Admiralty.")
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW)My Lords, you may, perhaps, desire me to say a word or two about the Amendment which was inserted in the Bill in another place at the instigation of the Admiralty. The position is this. The last subsection of Section 34 of the Explosives Act, 1875, which is the main Act referred to in the new clause, gave powers to the Board of Trade to make by-laws for any part of the coast where there was no harbour authority. These powers, as your Lordships know, have since passed to the Ministry of Transport. The Admiralty is not a harbour authority within the meaning of the Explosives Act, 1875. The Commons Amendment, which is Clause 4 in the Bill as it is now before your Lordships, seeks to extend to the Admiralty, in its own right, in respect of a dockyard port where there is no harbour authority competent to make such by-laws, the powers at present possessed by the Ministry of Transport under the principal Act. It is, perhaps, as well to point out that shipper "of explosive" and others interested in the matter need not regard the insertion of this clause in the Bill with any alarm. The effect will simply be that whether a shipper of explosives goes into a dockyard port or into a port controlled by a harbour authority—that is to say, a private port—he will find 686 himself controlled by by-laws made under one and the same Act, or rather under the general Explosives Acts.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to